


Knight In Shining Armour

by Kissed_by_Circe



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bodyguard, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:53:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27561805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kissed_by_Circe/pseuds/Kissed_by_Circe
Summary: It’s a smell that brings back memories.Leaning over the velvet upholstered armrest of a movie theatre seat to whisper something in his ear. Him draping his jacket over her shoulders on the steps leading up to the Sept of Baelor to cover up her sleeveless top. All those times they’ve ridden a street car together on their way back from a trip, his body shielding hers from the other passengers.Or: After being a prisoner for years, Sansa just wants to have fun, while Jon is assigned as her bodyguard.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 22
Kudos: 157





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sansa has been a prisoner in King’s Landing and in the Eyrie for years, until Stannis freed her. She’s spent a few weeks in a high-end psychiatric hospital, and has been living in Winterfell for a few months, but now she has to return to King’s Landing for Stannis’ coronation. 
> 
> Sansa is 20, Jon 24.

♚

There’s a knock on the door, and Jon opens it without thinking, immediately cursing himself when he sees that it’s _her_ in the hallway outside his room. She’s pristine as always, perfectly coiffed hair, perfectly smooth dress, perfectly coordinated jewellery, fresh out of an official interview, a stark contrast to his sweat drenched clothes – _or lack thereof_ – and his scars and his tattoos. “I’m so sorry, I was in the gym…” he stammers, while Sansa looks down at her shoes, her cheeks flushed and her arms crossed before her chest.

At least he’s still wearing his shorts, and he quickly grabs a clean t-shirt and pulls it over his head to make them both more comfortable. “I’m really, really sorry, I’m much too used to people barging in – I didn’t think before opening the door,” he tries to say, while she stammers out some excuses herself, and he wants to punch himself in the face.

He’s still not used to having her around, even after four months, and he doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable in any way. She’s always so skittish – she hides it well, and the fact that she’s such a skilled actress makes his heart bleed for the young woman, the young girl, that spent so much time in captivity – and he’s already noticed that men and uniforms make her even more so.

He tries to smile in a reassuring way, and gestures for her to come in.

The bedroom he’s been given in the palazzo they’re staying in is a typical guest room, minimalistic in a cold way despite the rustic feel of the blotchy walls and the little balconets outside the tall windows, and even though he’s already unpacked his things and ruffled up the sheets, it’s still not nearly as intimate as his apartment at Winterfell, but she still hesitates at the threshold. It’s just a fraction of a moment, how she holds her breath and squares her shoulders, just a bit, barely visible under her tailored jacket, but he still notices.

Neither makes a move to close the door, and Jon wonders if she feels safe, alone in a room with a man who is barely more than a stranger to her.

He’s been with her family for close to five years now, a friend to Robb and Arya, a guardian to the boys, a trusted employee to the Queen Mother and the Blackfish, but while he’s one of Robb’s closest confidants, and spends whole days babysitting her younger siblings, he barely knows her.

Sometimes he catches a glimpse of her walking in the palace gardens, or she’s hovering in the background while he plays videogames with her siblings, a lost expression on her pale face, as if she’s come back from the dead, not being able to understand her sister’s japes and her brothers’ games, wanting to participate, but unsure how. Other times they’ll run into each other in the vast kitchens, or the courtyard, and while her attempts at small talk are polite, she always remains cautious and brief in her answers.

It’s as if she’s constantly trying to fade into the background, and he wonders what her life must’ve been like, in the Red Keep, up on the Eyrie, and at Lady Maegelle’s hospital, to make her so guarded. Lady Catelyn and Robb say that she is getting better, Arya mentions that they’re closer than before, but that’s only behind closed doors, with her family, and certainly not when he’s there.

“Is the gym good?” she murmurs softly, and he wonders if she’s trying to do some small talk, trying to figure out who the man, her unofficial bodyguard for this trip, is, or if she needs something from him, but doesn’t want to ask him outright. “Good enough for a few weeks,” he answers, matching her quiet, calm tone, “depending on what you want to do, of course.”

“Running, yoga, … I’ve been thinking about martial arts, too,” she says, not looking at him, but at the books stacked on his desk. Her slender fingers gently caress a worn cover, and he clears his throat before he speaks. “If you need someone to train with, I’d be happy you help you out. If I join you, we could even go running in Rhaenys Park,” he offers, and she nods, the shadow of a smile ghosting over her lips.

“That’d be nice,” she mumbles, and he waits for her to say more, to reveal why she’s here with him, what she wants, or needs, from him. His mouth is full of questions – what’s it like being back here, after all that’s happened, if there is something that he can do to make it easier for her, if she is okay – but he swallows them. He doesn’t like being asked about his time in the Night’s Watch, about the war, about the things he did, and he hopes that she’ll talk to her mother, her sister, her friends, her therapist about what’s happened to her, but he won’t press her for any details that she doesn’t want to give up to him.

He’s unsure if he should try some small talk, ask her harmless questions about something, _anything_ , but he realises once again that he doesn’t know anything about her, about her interests, her hobbies.

_Does she even have hobbies?_

They’ve all seen videos of her, taken over the last years, during her captivity, they’ve all been briefed about her and her ‘delicate health’, but apart from her diplomatic skills he knows next to nothing about the girl in front of him.

“I’ve been assigned several bodyguards for this trip,” she murmurs, and he’s not sure what she wants, but he states their names in a softer, quieter version of his typical military voice, hoping to catch her meaning from how she reacts, but she keeps her face blank. “Is there a problem with one of them? Something you don’t want to tell Robb, or your mother?” he probes, but she shakes her head.

“No, no, they are all very friendly, very professional,” she tells him, and he wonders if that politeness shining through her words, and how timid she is, are a result of what she’s gone through. She clearly doesn’t feel comfortable talking about others in a bad way, as if she’s used to hiding her opinions, used to mollifying people to keep herself safe, and he wishes that she knew that she can give him her honest opinions, that no one here would hurt her for saying the wrong thing, that this is a safe space for her where she can be herself.

He doesn’t say anything like that, of course, he just tries to appear as calm and approachable as he can with a low hum and a gesture that’s supposed to tell her to continue. She clears her throat and wrings her hands, a nervous gesture, but still just as restrained as all of her movements are, and he reaches out to clasp his hand over hers, in a tentative, but reassuring gesture, gently rubbing his thumb over her knuckles and the bare skin between her rings.

It’s a bit awkward with how far away from each other they’re standing, but he just wants her to feel calm, to feel safe around him, or at least safe enough to tell him what’s bordering her or what he can do to make this all easier for her.

“They are all good bodyguards…” she starts again, and he mumbles “But?”, trying to get her to talk to him. “But I would like to do some things that aren’t official engagements. Visit some museums, do some shopping, go out to eat, things like that.” Things that most girls her age do on a daily basis, things that should be taken for granted, but from how she says them, he wonders if she’s done anything like that the last few years, and he remembers the yearning look he sees her wear so often, when people around her talk about their lives and their pasts.

“Protocol says that you should be accompanied by at least one guard, better two because of the current situation, but you are, of course, free to do all these things, and more,” he offers, and she nods again. “I just – I think that I would be more comfortable if you were to accompany me,” she murmurs, and at first, he thinks that he must’ve misunderstood her.

“Me?” His voice is quiet, and gentle, and she squirms a bit under his soft gaze. “I don’t know any of them personally, and Robb trusts you, and – _I_ trust you. But only if you’re okay with that, but I thought that, with your offer of taking me to the park and everything,” she mumbles, and he stops her with a gentle squeeze of his hand on hers.

“Of course I’m okay with this,” he tells her as seriously as he can, and it almost sounds like a promise. “I’ll have to talk to Robb and Hal Mollen about it, but I’m sure that they’ll agree.”

When she murmurs a soft “Thank you,” and leaves, he can still feel the coldness of her fingers under his.

♚

It still feels weird to her, going out into the city without having to ask for permission, choosing where she wants to go and what she wants to do on her own, without anyone’s surveillance, and she catches herself glancing back, looking for a disapproving look or the hint of a frown telling her to smile wider, to stand straighter, to keep up her act, only to find Jory squinting up at street signs or looking after loud cars, and the slight smiles of Jon, who’s silently trailing behind them.

The Mormont girl’s never been to a city bigger than Deepwood Motte, and even though she keeps grumbling about how big the capital is and how she doesn’t understand the metro system, Sansa envies her, from how easily she moves through throngs of people and navigates the broad streets, to how comfortable and at ease she appears.

Without even wanting to, she finds herself trying to copy her, trying to act like the people in the movies do, stops to look into shop windows and at street food just because she can, while Jory is browsing through the display of a jewellery shop.

The other girl buys a bracelet, and Sansa watches her joke around with the young vendor, how she throws her head back when she laughs, how unrestrained her grin is, how she counts out coins trying to make it easier for the man to give her back her change.

There are so many situations she’s not been in in years or never at all, and the realisation that Jory, that other girls, see little interactions like this as normal, while she’s not been allowed to do something as simple as go into a store and buy a cheap piece of jewellery, or laugh in a way that could be seen as not perfect, hits her like a wave.

The feelings rolling around in her stomach are a mixture of anger at all the people that kept her at on a short leash, and a giddy kind of anxiety, now that she _can_ do what she wants, and she buries the other feelings deep inside of her, replacing the mourning for her lost teenage years with the resolve to make up for all that she’s missed, now that she's in her twenties.

She’s free _now_ , she’s going to do what she wants, and no one’s going to stop her.

♚

The _Parco di Rhaenys_ is more crowded than she expected, the lawns overflowing with students napping on the bare grass and people sunbathing on a patchwork of towels, the paths full of children chasing each other and tourists stumbling around with their faces buried in maps and guides, looking for the ruins of the famous Dragonpit and other sights.

There are a few other joggers around, sweating in the evening heat in shorts and leggings and tank tops, and she looks down herself, at her elegant gym trousers and pale sweatshirt, an outfit neither Cersei nor Petyr would’ve approved of for a public outing, and then at Jon, trying to imitate his warmup stretches without looking at the broad flashes of bronze skin visible between his dark tank top and navy shorts every time he raises his arms, and he smiles at her.

“Do you want me to run with you or behind you?” he asks her, quietly, calmly, not looking at her while Jory is a few steps away reading a map and trying to find the best route, and she understands that he doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable. Somehow, she finds that she doesn’t mind the idea of him running behind her like a bodyguard, like someone trying to keep her or catch her, but she still shrugs.

“We could run together, um, I fear I’d be horrible company for Jory on my own,” she mumbles, and he raises an eyebrow in question. “I’ve only run on treadmills so far, I’m afraid I’ll spend the first few laps wheezing and trying to keep up with you two,” she admits, and he shrugs. “We’ll match your speed, then,” he answers, and with a last stretch and a last deep breath, they fall into a casual jog next to each other.

♚

He’s not actually supposed to be a bodyguard.

He’s a valued member of Robb’s former war council, a family friend of sorts, someone who’s fought next to Robb and listened to him during long nights, someone who discussed strategies and battle plans with the Queen Mother and the Blackfish, someone who called for a medic when Robb was shot and who held him when the news of Greyjoy’s betrayal reached them.

Sometimes he wonders what it would be like if Greyjoy was still here – he’s never met the man in person, but he wonders if the Starks had taken him in as one of their own if there hadn’t been so many gaps in their family left by people dying and disappearing and turning against them, if Robb would’ve started calling him and Ray his brothers after their stay at the Crag if he hadn’t thought he’d lost his own.

He wonders what Greyjoy would do if he were here now.

Would Sansa treat him the way she treats Jon, always asking him to accompany her instead of the hired guards her mother has selected for this trip, asking him to take her to the museum and to the park and everything? Was she close to Greyjoy, her foster brother? Would she confide in him, would he be able to read her and help her in ways that Jon can only imagine?

He’s not sure, but he knows that it’s not good to dwell on thoughts like this for too long, and so he trails after her, lingering a few feet behind her in a way that reminds him of his undercover work, and focuses on more realistic questions. He’s not trained as a bodyguard, and even though his time in the Night’s Watch and in the Northern Army have turned him into a skilled fighter, he doesn’t really feel qualified, especially for this city, this charge, this political situation, so why does Sansa keep asking him to come with her, when she could have her pick from all the guards the Starks have hired?

She seems to be fine with them during her official engagements, when she’s visiting hospitals and walking red carpets and looking at the newest additions to the skyline of the _Approdo del Re_ , built where she saw bombs and missiles fall, her head held high and her hands hidden under soft white gloves that make her look like an upper-class lady from the 1960s, so he’s not sure if she simply feels more comfortable around him, or if she doesn’t want them with her when she’s going out with her friends, or if it is because she sees him as more of a friend than them.

_The only thing he knows for sure is that he likes spending time with her._

They have lost Alys somewhere between military history and the Dornish wing, and Sansa falls into step next to him, matching his slow, leisurely pace past battle maps and castle dioramas and glass cases full of daggers and cups and religious artefacts, their shapes lost to oxidation, their purposes written in the Common Tongue and in Valyrian.

Most of the hallways and rooms are quiet, the tomblike silence only broken by the squeaking of rubber soles on the cement tiles as a group of tourists pass by them at a quicker pace, not bothering to look at the displays and exhibits, and without even having to think about it, he steps between them and Sansa, steadying her with a hand on her elbow when she is pushed against a showcase by some idiot’s oversized rucksack.

At least she doesn’t flinch, he thinks, when he pulls his hand away as soon as the other visitors are out of sight, and he tries not to look as she crosses her arms, her thumb rubbing her elbow where his fingers were griping her only moments before.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, her voice barely audible, and he hums, not sure what he could possibly say in a situation like this. The map in his hands is crumpled, but he still tries to make sense of the labyrinth of rooms and wings and the coloured numbers indicating different exhibitions, tries to give her some space, tries to show her that everything’s alright.

“What was that thing you wanted to see, something about the _Wars of the Beasts_?” he mumbles, remembering exactly what exhibition she wants to see and where it is, but asking her nonetheless. “Um, yes,” she answers, leaning over his arm and tracing the tangle of lines on the paper. “It should be here, and we are here – I think? And you don’t have to come.”

That last part was probably supposed to sound nonchalant, but Jon guesses that she doesn’t really mean it, so he gestures down the corridor. “Lead the way, your grace, I want to learn more about the _Wars of the Beasts_ ,” he says with a mock bow, and she looks at him as if she’s not quite sure if he’s joking or not, so he throws in a broad grin for good measure, secretly delighted when she smiles back at him. It’s the first real smile he’s seen on her face, the first one that touches her eyes, and he holds out the map in front of him even though he already knows the way and the positions of all emergency exits.

“What part of the Wars are you most interested in? I’ve only read up on the military aspects of that time, but nothing more… so far,” he admits, and she nods. “The political situation is quite interesting, but what intrigues me the most is how things like honour, vows and the like, and simple relationships shaped this. A whole siege, a battle, a war, lost or won because someone, just a single person, couldn’t control their temper, or had different priorities, or trusted the wrong person…” she says, quietly, not looking at him, and he wonders if she even remembers that he’s there, or if she’s lost in her own mind.

His response is equally quiet, so not to startle her. “That’s because we’re all human in the end.”

She smiles at him and it’s like the sun on a cloudy day.

♚

“This is pretty cool, too,” he murmurs a few minutes later, bending down to examine the part of the famous Brightwater Tapestry that depicts the wedding of the false Arya Stark to Ramsay Bolton. The tiny pearls sewn onto her dress shine through the glass that protects the precious piece of art from dust and humidity and greasy hands, and every time he moves to get a closer look at something hiding in the tidy, yet bold stitches, the light shifts on the almost metallic shine of the treads, revealing another snarling direwolf embroidered on the hem, another set of glistening teeth and fur the colour of moonlight, set between fish scales and weirwood leaves.

“I’m thinking about enrolling at White Harbor Uni in the fall, either for fashion, or for history,” she says somewhere next to him, her voice absent, her thoughts far, far away from these ancient halls, and he just mumbles something encouraging, not wanting to disturb her thoughts. She keeps looking at the tapestry, but to Jon, it looks like she’s seeing through it, staring right into the past – he’s not sure whether it’s her own, or that of this mysterious, yet false, princess of old – and he thinks about gently touching her arm to get her out of her trance, hoping that that will be better than leaving her like this for too long, when she starts speaking again.

“Do you think it happened like this?” she asks, her voice still so very far away, her gaze still locked to a point behind the wall, almost startling him. “I don’t know,” he answers her, as honestly as he can.

He read up on history during his time at the Night’s Watch, and later during his military campaigns, and the one thing he knows for sure is that some things are simply lost in time, with letters vanished, details regarded as unimportant, information never written down, events exaggerated by gossip or changed when passed down orally.

“It reminds me of –“ she trails off, her jaw taut for a moment before she bites her lip. “I just realised that I don’t like this,” she looks and gestures down her dress and shoes, her brow furrowed, “I don’t really like most of the clothes I own.”

She looks beautiful in her summer dress with the floral pattern and colour-coordinated accessories, but he doesn’t say that.

Instead, he raises his eyebrows and asks her why. “I got them while I was – I could only wear things they approved of, or things they bought _for_ me, outfits that were befitting of my station, that helped my image,” she tries to explain, looking to him for an affirmation that he understands, and he nods along.

“I spent years only wearing Night’s Watch-issue fatigues and uniforms,” he tells her, trying to show her that he does understand what she means, and her face softens. “Clothes helped me draw a line between the ranger or the soldier, and the person I am when I’m off duty, _really_ off duty.”

_He doesn’t understand the look of determination on her face yet, but he will soon enough._

For now, he just relishes in the way she smiles at him and how close she walks next to him, how much she seems to trust him when she talks about the scenes shown on the tapestry and lets details about her own past shine through, how she stops restraining herself around him. Maybe they could become friends, he thinks, and surprises himself with how much he likes that thought.

♚

_He never expected their conversation to lead to consequences like this._

And yes, while _consequences_ may sound a bit overdramatic for a perfectly normal, common situation like this, he still thinks it an appropriate word for how Wylla almost manhandled him into the first of way too many stores.

(She has a map, and a _list_ , and he feels completely and utterly out of his depth).

But while he still doesn’t understand why Sansa and what appears to be her new best friend drag him along on all of their shopping trips as if they didn’t have more than a dozen bodyguards with actual training and experience at their disposal, he has to admit that he likes it. Likes spending time with Sansa, seeing her get more and more comfortable around the Manderly girl, watching her getting used to not always being on her guard, witnessing how she turns from a person worn down by wars and pain and fear into a young woman that laughs a bit louder and smiles a bit broader every day.

At one point she stops clenching her teeth to the point where he can see the strain in her neck, at her throat, and starts making little comments. She still pauses for half a heartbeat before she says something, no matter how trivial it may be, but he still wonders how often she must’ve bitten her tongue, how often she must’ve stopped herself from saying what she thinks just to keep herself safe.

He thinks it again when she waves at him from the little red convertible he recognises as belonging to Alys Karstark, and yells something that sounds suspiciously like _‘get in loser, we’re going shopping!’_.

“What was that?” he asks, leaning down on the car door, his face maybe a bit too close to hers, not really noticing how shallow her breathing gets or how wide her eyes are. Maybe he didn’t hear her correctly, but he wants to hear everything she has to say, whether it’s something important or just a bad joke or a lame one-liner. He wants to listen to everything she feels comfortable telling him, and he wants her to know that she can say everything when it comes to him.

“That was a line from a movie,” she mumbles, her cheeks pink and Alys chuckling next to her, and he grins and stands back up. “So we’re quoting movies now, are we?” he asks, a teasing lilt to his voice, his grin pulling up the left corner of his mouth as he climbs into the backseat.

The car is way too small for people with legs like theirs, and he wonders how Alys could not only buy a car where she punches herself in the face with her own knee every time she has to shift gears, but also how she could look at both Sansa and him and decide that it would be a good idea to force them into a car with the least leg space imaginable, but he somehow manages not to grumble too loudly.

“My gods, Snow, you really have to watch a movie sometimes, our girl here is throwing references around like an annoyingly quirky asshole in an acclaimed men’s romance movie and they all just go over your head,” Alys says with a laugh, and Jon frowns.

“Maybe we have different tastes in movies, and she’s only referencing the ones I haven’t seen?” he offers up as an explanation, and Alys chuckles again. “You should give him a watch-list to make sure he sees the right ones,” she says to Sansa, but her friend turns back to Jon, her hand so close to where he is holding onto the backrest of her seat.

“We could watch some of my favourites together some time, if you like?” she offers, and the strain in his cheeks from how much he’s smiling is more painful than the one in his shins where he’s jammed them between the seats, but it’s more than worth it from her answering smile.

♚

There are times when she hesitates to ask him to accompany them.

He didn’t sign up as a bodyguard or part of their party’s security, and he certainly never thought he’d end up as her personal babysitter of a kind when he agreed to come south with them in the first place, and she’s not really sure what he’s thinking about their current situation.

Is he annoyed or bothered by her frequent questions, by the sheer amount of time they’re spending together when he could just as well explore the city on his own, go out with his friends, or spend time in blessedly quiet solitude away from Wylla’s giggling and Jory’s bold remarks? But judging from how he smiles and nods whenever she asks him whether he’s free, whether he wants to go somewhere with them, that’s either not the case, or he’s a rather skilled actor.

Either that, or Robb’s asked him to keep an eye out for her, which isn’t something she likes to think about.

It feels weird enough for her to go shopping, allowing her fingers to brush over rows and rows of clothes, laughing silently when Jory mockingly pulls out something too hideous for this world, sharing a changing room with a surprisingly bold Wylla, modelling clothes in front of people she could call her friends, instead of having to stand still under the ever-observant stare of Baelish or Cersei or an army of personal shoppers.

Jon seems a bit out of place in most of the shops they’ve been to so far, a bit too professional in his slacks and pressed shirts, even with the sleeves rolled up and the top buttons undone, a bit too rugged with his stubbled cheeks and the scars around his eye, but at least he doesn’t look like a bodyguard. She doesn’t think that she could be this relaxed around one of their actual guards.

Something about them, about the dark, non-descript suits with earpiece cords sneaking out of the collars and those blocky sunglasses, about the carefully maintained expressionlessness of their faces and voices, is unsettling, and she wonders if she could feel this comfortable, this free, if it was a dark, silent, yet _alert_ shadow trailing behind her instead of Jon, who’s carrying a heap of clothes and hangers over one of his arms, while his other hand keeps pulling out t-shirts and dresses to read the cringy, and sometimes sparkly, slogans printed on them.

He looks just as casual and as confident as Alys and Wylla, as if they were just a group of friends on a little shopping spree, and she wonders, yet again, if he could see her as a friend.


	2. Chapter 2

♚

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to bother you,” she mumbles, clearing her voice to shake out the tightness of her throat, hoping that he doesn’t hear how high it sounds. He’s sitting in one of the horribly uncomfortable cast iron lawn chairs that fit so well into the elegant patio of their palazzo, making it look so much like what she imagined when they moved here all those years ago, so much like what she wants her Instagram pictures to look like.

Jon looks like them, too, with the top of his shirt unbuttoned and his wavy hair tousled, leaning back with his eyes closed and his arms hanging down and his face almost slack enough to make it look like he fell asleep were it not for the bottle in his hand, spinning in slow circles, the light catching in the dark glass and in the rings he’s wearing on his long fingers.

He doesn’t even flinch when she almost stumbles into him, only opens his eyes slowly, blinking a few times against the relative brightness spilling out of the windows behind her, and she hopes against all odds that the light is muted enough, that he can’t see the panic in her eyes or the way her fingers tremble in the darkness that fills the patio.

Her panic is such a stark contrast to how calm, how relaxed he looks, and suddenly she’s overcome with a longing she can hardly keep at bay, and the craving to be this relaxed, to feel save enough to almost fall asleep in a house full of strangers, to let her guard down enough to almost melt into a piece of lawn furniture, settles in her chest like an open wound, ripping away at her insides like a fever.

“You’re not bothering me,” he answers, his voice thick with something she can’t name, and when he gestures to the vacant chair next to him, she lets herself plop down on it, relieved to find a pillow on it. How he can look this comfortable with the cool metalwork of the chair digging into his back is a mystery to her, but she’s sitting close enough to him to smell his cologne and his laundry detergent and something that she’s come to recognise as his own scent over the fragrance of the roses planted in this part of the garden.

It’s a smell that brings back memories.

Leaning over the velvet upholstered armrest of a movie theatre seat to whisper something in his ear. Him draping his jacket over her shoulders on the steps leading up to the Sept of Baelor to cover up her sleeveless top. All those times they’ve ridden a street car together on their way back from a trip, his body shielding hers from the other passengers.

It’s not as strong as the memories of damp, minty breath on her neck, but she closes her eyes and concentrates on the here and now, on the strong, but kind man sitting next to her, looking at her with an unspoken question, and a suspicion on what the answer might be, in his eyes. “I passed Long Lew in the hallway, and he’s chewing some minty gum. The smell makes me sick,” she tries to explain, hoping that he’ll either understand her meaning and understand _her_ , or that he’ll only hear what everyone would hear, and assume that she simply cannot stand the smell, the way others get headaches from scented candles and the like.

“ _Oh_ ,” is all he says, but the sound is heavy with knowledge, and she’s sure that he remembers Petyr Baelish’s love of mint drops just as she does. He sighs, and she wonders whether he’s going to say something, or going to get her therapist, but he just holds out his bottle to her in a movement that looks like an invitation. Their fingers touch, hers brushing over his when she wraps them around the bottleneck, and she’s not supposed to drink, but a sip or two probably won’t hurt.

It feels intimate in a way that makes her ache with longing even more, when her lips close over the rim of the bottle, the wine is good, probably one that she ordered for the palazzo’s cellar, and it fills her mouth with a taste that washes away the bile she thought she could taste in her mouth only a few moments, or maybe an eternity, ago.

There aren’t any stars they could see, the brightness of the city’s lights drowning out the softer freckles of the night sky, but they still look upwards, their gazes following the blinking lights of a plane going south, the closer ones of a rescue helicopter, the short glimmer of a cigarette being flipped of the second storey loggia, burning out before it touches the ground.

It feels comfortable, to sit next to him in silence, and when he raises his hands, she doesn’t even startle.

“Driftwood aftershave. That’s what he smelled like,” he explains, showing her the fine pattern of scars running over his fingers and all the way to his wrists, and she understands exactly what he means, even if she doesn’t know anything about those scars or the fire that left them or the man that must’ve caused it.

He looks down at his hands, and she’s not sure if he’s really seeing them, or seeing something that isn’t there, something he only imagines, if he’s thinking about what his hands, scarred and rough and big as they are, have done. She knows that he was a soldier, that his past is at least as dark as hers is, and she doesn’t want to startle him, but he seems so lost in his own thoughts that she can’t help but interrupt them, the way she so often has to it for herself.

His shoulder is warm under her fingers, and for a moment she fears that she overstepped, that she crossed some invisible line, that he will flinch away from her touch as if she’s burnt him, but he doesn’t move, just sighs and buries his face in his hands. He looks tired, and she’s leaning over the armrest of her chair in an awkward angle, reaching over to him with her arm outstretched, her limbs just as tired as his expression and the metal of the chair digging into her side, but she doesn’t feel any of that when he smiles at her, so tiredly and softly and gently that it almost breaks her heart.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles. “What for?” he says, both a question and an answer, and she shrugs awkwardly, finally letting go of his shoulder and immediately missing the warmth of his body. She’s not sure herself what she’s sorry for.

The things that have happened to him, the things that have happened to her, the whole bloody war that has left them like this, or something else entirely?

In the end, she looks down at her hands, so empty, so delicate, the hands of a lady, not a soldier.

“For bothering you. You’re not a bodyguard, it’s not your duty or your job to follow me on my shopping trips and all that. I shouldn’t waste your time like that,” she says at least, and she means it. Now it is him who reaches out, who grabs her hand where it’s still hanging mid-air between them, and his grip is both gentle and strong.

“You don’t bother me, you’re not wasting my time. We’re friends, and that’s what friends are for, after all.” His voice is serious and earnest, and she forces down the warmth spreading through her chest. “We’ve gone through so much, and you deserve to go shopping and do everything you want, now that you’re…” he’s struggling to find the right word, swallows, and finally mumbles “that you’re _back_.”

“I guess I’m trying to make up for the childhood, the teenage years I didn’t have,” she tries to explain, not sure if he’ll understand, but sure that he won’t look at her with the same distain she saw in Baelish’s face whenever he caught her watching some silly teen drama. _You’re too old for that_ , he’d say, _too mature for childish things like_ _that_ , and she’d bite her tongue before something like _but uncle, I_ am _a child_ could slip out.

Jon doesn’t look at her like that. Instead, he squeezes her hand, and his thumb strokes over her knuckles when he answers. “We’re all just trying to make up for what we missed. You’re so young, you should have fun.”

“You make it sound like you’re ancient compared to me,” she teases, trying to give her voice that casual edge she’s worked so hard to acquire, but he shakes his head. “I feel ancient. When I grew up, veterans and war heroes looked like the Blackfish, with grey in their hair and misty-eyed thousand-yard-stares and war stories from before I was born. And here I am, not even 25 yet, but highly decorated, with my own war stories. My uniform feels too heavy with all the medals, as if it didn’t belong to me.”

“That’s why I’m not wearing my rings anymore. They felt like chains, and I doubt that anyone would take me more seriously if I dressed like the widow or the divorcee that I am. You’re right, we’re much too young for what we are, but at least they don’t treat you like a child.”

She sounds too bitter, and suddenly the wine on her lips tastes stale with the memory of another woman who complained about men and the things they do. Their feelings may be the same, but she will act differently, she silently vows to herself.

His knuckles go white around the bottleneck as he takes another sip.

“You’re not a child,” he says at least, and, “they should’ve given you an award. You brought us the Vale, without a single casualty. Most of those men in their uniforms with their all their medals couldn’t have dreamed of something like that. You were the one that changed the odds in our favour.”

She doesn’t correct him. Doesn’t tell him that there _were_ casualties, that she wore her white dress like it was armour, that her wedding and engagement rings lie in the same vault as her ancestors’ military awards and nursing order stars and the family jewels.

She just squeezes his hand, and smiles softly. “Sometimes I just want to forget who I am, _what_ I am,” she confesses at last. He mutters _same,_ so seriously that she can’t help but laugh, loudly, with her head thrown back and too many teeth showing, the sudden noise probably scaring whoever might be smoking up on that loggia, be it one of the guards or her brother or someone else entirely, but she doesn’t care.

♚

This time, he doesn’t open the door. It’s not locked, it never is, and when she knocks, the gentle rap of her knuckles on the wood so familiar now, he calls out _Enter!_ without even looking away from the mirror as he struggles with his bow tie. If this was one of the sappy teen-drama series she likes to watch, she would come over to him and help him with his bow and righten his lapels. The ache, the longing, the _craving_ the mental image ignites in his chest is almost too much to bear, and he’s not even sure if he’s imagining that gesture as that of a friend helping a friend, or in a more romantic, a more intimate way.

The only thing he knows for sure is that he wants to be near her, to spend time with her, to see her laugh.

When he looks up, she’s still standing in the door frame like a stranger, instead of walking around the room or lounging on the récamier in that casual manner that he’s so happy she has adopted around him, and he’s already frowning, even before he notices how she has her arms crossed before her chest. The pale gaze sweeping over his form is scrutinising, to say the least, as she sizes him up, from his shoes to his hair, and he feels himself standing up straighter under it.

“Are you really going to wear that?”

She doesn’t say it unkindly, more like she’s confused, which confuses him in return. “Didn’t you say you wanted to go ‘out’? You said something about dancing?” he asks back, not sure if he really understood what she meant when she asked him earlier that day. He imagined a fancy party or soiree at the Tyrell’s villa, or some sort of gala, like all the state dinners and balls where his job is to charm diplomats and entertain old generals and try not to step on the toes of the Queen Mother or Lady Dustin when they brief him during a dance or two, but her outfit is a far cry from the evening wear he’s seen at those functions.

He doesn’t know anything about women’s underwear apart from what he overheard from her conversations with Beth and Wylla, and he has no idea how adhesive strips or spandex works, but he’s pretty sure that she’s not wearing a bra under the low dip of her black slip dress with the sheer turtleneck underneath, and her makeup is way too dark and too heavy for her mother’s approval. Judging from her frown and her outfit, he clearly misunderstood her, and he tells her as much.

“The next time I need an escort for a ball or for the opera, I’ll ask you,” she tells him with a grin, and he feels himself relax. He tries not to think about _why_.

“That tux looks good,” she offers up next, and the part of him that wasn’t sure if his best suit (according to Lady Catelyn) was good enough for her, or if it would be too much to wear his mess uniform, is pleased. He tries to shove the feeling down, and fails. At least she returns his smile with one of her own.

“I’ll change. Just how casual do I have to look?” he asks, and she shrugs. “We’re going clubbing,” she says, and he knows that she’s never gone clubbing before without her having to say it, so he just nods and smiles, again. “Okay. Give me 10 minutes. I’ll try not to embarrass you with my outfit,” he promises, and she shakes her head. “You could never embarrass me,” she mutters, almost too quietly to hear, but he does, and he’s smiling behind her back as she closes the door on her way out.

♚

She’s seen him in workout clothes and in uniform, and she’s always assumed that what she’s seen him wear at home at Winterfell and here in King’s Landing, the sensible mix of classic button-ups and high-end leather shoes and dark colours, was simply his style, but when he joins them a few minutes later, with his hair mussed from pulling on a soft looking, tight t-shirt and a brown leather jacket hanging over his arm, she realises that maybe, he’s dressing up for them, that this, all dark and handsome and a bit dangerous, is what he normally chooses for nights out with his _real friends_ , not for this girl, this family, he’s working for.

“Damn, Snow, you clean up nicely. Or is it ‘rough up nicely’?” Alys says next to her with a whistle, and Sansa notices how Wylla’s looking him up and down, clearly sizing him up with an encouraging smile. He _does_ look good, she has to admit, and she’s not sure how she feels about it. On the one hand, she’s still not sure if he actually sees her as his friend, if she’s more to him than just a job and a duty and a former political hostage with PTSD that has to be supervised at all times to keep her safe from others and from herself, if he’s just trying to help Robb and her mother and her therapist, or if he really wants to be friends with her.

And then there’s the question of whether this could be more, if there would be more intimacy between them.

Was their talk that night in the garden something he reported back to Brienne, or to her mother, or was it the first step towards them growing closer? Is the way he keeps looking at her that of a man assigned to watch over her, or that of a man who wants her in a way that no other, not even her former husbands and Baelish, has? And if she ever gathers the courage to ask him, will he answer honestly, and will she be able to trust in his words?

♚

The club that Alys’ secret boyfriend told them about after her friend annoyed him long enough is nothing like she expected. It’s dark and it’s crowded, not at all like the ones she’s seen in movies and tv shows, but then again, she’s not really seen anything of the world outside of castle walls since she was 15 and still living at home.

Baelish’s soirees and Myranda’s stories are a far cry from this, and she’s grateful for Wylla’s arm wrapped around her waist in a sisterly gesture, and for the way Jon’s arm keeps brushing hers. It’s overwhelming at first, the noise, the press of strangers’ bodies against her own, but Alys makes a determined beeline for the bar, getting them all drinks, and then Wylla pulls her onto the dance floor, and suddenly everything’s like in the movies, the music, the way the crowd moves around her, the lights reflecting on body glitter and sequined dresses.

She’s not sure how long they’ve been dancing when Wylla mouths _‘I have to go for little mermaids’_ , but her own throat feels dry and sore, so she decides to head over to the bar again. She’s pretty sure that that’s where she’s last seen Alys and her hunk of a boyfriend, but they’re nowhere to be seen – maybe they’re outside, having a smoke, maybe they’re someplace else, but suddenly the place seems darker, and she can feel the floor sway under her feet.

She’s only had water but she feels drunk and slow and thrown off centre when she pushes through the masses, all the bodies moving against her like the current pulling her out into the open sea, like a wall moving against her, and she forces the panic that threatens to rise back down. The brush of a big hand on her back startles her, and she begins to move away when someone tall moves to stand next to her.

It’s Jon.

He’s still cradling three drinks to his chest, but he uses his other arm to shield her, guides her to what she recognises as an exit with his arm still hovering over the small of her back and his fingers resting on her elbow, stepping around people and, when necessary, pushing against someone to make space for her. A bouncer eyes them when they step outside, but Jon doesn’t stop until they’re out in the open and away from the people lingering around the door in a cloud of cigarette smoke and low laughter.

The dim light of the lantern they’re standing under casts shadows on his face, but she notices his concern in the way he looks her up and down. He only bends down for a moment to put the glasses down on the pavement, but she reaches for him before he’s standing straight again, her hands on his shoulder, on his chest, to steady herself on her heels and on her weak knees. “Are you alright?” he asks her, and she’s not sure if they’ve ever been this close. His eyes are dark and he has his hands on her waist, holding her, anchoring her.

They’re the same height, and the street light is golden on his face when she leans forward to kiss him.

♚

He wakes up to someone pounding on his door, and he’s glad that they locked it last night when he gently lifts her arm, careful not to wake her, and slips out of bed. His pants are laying somewhere on the floor, and he pulls them on with a silent groan. They’re almost as crumpled as the t-shirt he slept in, but whatever it is must be urgent, and a dozen different bad news go through his head as he turns the key and pulls the door open a crack. A terror attack, an accident, a political scandal, or something even worse?

What he doesn’t expect is the sight of Lady Catelyn, strands of hair loose from her usual neat bun, eyes wide, urgency evident in every movement as she almost clutches at him when he steps out into the hallway. There’s desperation in her voice, in a way he’s never heard, not when Robb was injured, not when King’s Landing was bombed, not when they were told that Winterfell had fallen. She was always restrained, always looking at the bigger picture, always looking where she could _do_ something instead of sitting around worrying and mourning.

“Where is she? Where is Sansa? She’s not in her bed-”

“She’s here. She’s fine,” he is quick to reassure her, and he only realises how scared Lady Catelyn must’ve been when her shoulders slump. “She slept here,” he motions at the door behind him, and watches the fear drain from the Queen Mother’s face.

“Did something… happen last night? Something I should worry about?” she asks, and he shakes his head. “We had fun. She seemed to enjoy herself.” Lady Catelyn nods to herself, relief clear on her face.

“No panic attacks, no sign of anxiety, nothing… out of the ordinary?” she inquires, and memories of last night, of Sansa’s taste and what he did between her legs and the noises she made, flash before him, before he shakes them out of his head.

“Nothing. Just a girl out with her friends, having a good time.”

Lady Catelyn seems to be satisfied by his answers at last, and her eyes are tired when she squeezes his shoulder. “Thank you. Thank you for being there for them, Jon.” He waits until she’s down the hallway to slip back into his room.

Sansa is sitting in his bed, wearing one of his t-shirts now instead of the slinky dress she fell asleep in. Her hair is a mess, her makeup is almost gone, and in his big soft shirt she looks as young as she is, too young for all that she’s gone through. It almost breaks his heart.

“I didn’t know if you were coming back,” she admits, and adds, “I don’t know anything about what comes after.”

She fiddles with the hem of the t-shirt, and he’s not sure what the ones that came before him did, but he silently vows to be better, even if it’s just this one time. “We could cuddle, if you like. I actually wanted to get back in there for a nap,” he offers, trying not to get his hopes up, and when her face lights up, he feels his heart clench in his chest. She busies herself with arranging the pillows while he gets out of his horribly tight pants again, and when he slips under the covers again, she immediately snuggles up to him, pressing her back against his chest.

He wraps an arm around her waist, pulls her closer, buries his face in her hair, barely able to believe that this is real, that this is happening, that Sansa Stark wants to sleep in his arms. “Sweet dreams, princess,” he mumbles, wondering if she’s hearing it, wondering if she’s already fast asleep, wondering if he’s only imagining how stiff she goes at his words.

♚

He has no idea what exactly he did wrong.

Everything seemed fine, and for the longest moment he thought that this could be the beginning of something more, a step further towards a future where he’s not just her friend but maybe her lover, maybe her boyfriend, maybe even more. Maybe too much for her.

What if it reminded her of something she’d rather forget, or triggered a flight response? Did he remind her of the ones that came before him, the ones long dead and buried, or did his arms feel like another gilded cage around her? He’d like to ask her, but ever since she stumbled out of his bed and fled from his room, wearing nothing more than his t-shirt, apparently not caring about what the guards patrolling the halls and the maids dusting off the statues and frames lining them might think about her, she’s been avoiding him, and he finds that it’s driving him mad.

He misses her.

Misses her laugh, so much louder than before, her jokes and her pop culture references, the way she captures everyone’s attention the moment she enters a room, and how every time he looks at her to try and make a witty remark, she’s already watching him, grinning, readily offering up one of her own, as if they shared each other’s thoughts.

The only piece of advice that Robb and Wylla had offered, and that Sansa would’ve probably offered him, too, if he’d dared ask her, was to just _ask_ and talk about it, but every time he sees her, she leaves the room, or avoids his gaze, or turns away, and as much as he wants to know how to fix this whole mess he’s made, he doesn’t want to pry and force her to talk to him when she tries so hard to avoid him as much as she can.

♚

Before, she would have been relieved to see him, to feel the brush of his arm under her fingertips and the warmth radiating off of him through the layers of his uniform and her evening dress, to see him towering like a dark shadow over the grumpy Westerlands general that’s been pestering her for what feels like hours. Before, she would’ve been happy to see him, to have someone who understands her next to her to help her through this rather dull function. _Before_ , when she still thought that they were friends, or that he at least liked her for herself.

She flinches when he reaches for her and calls her _Your Grace_ , and she barely registers how he and General Lanny or Lannett or Lantell or whatever his name is introduce themselves. The hurt in his eyes seems real, even to her, but she’s made herself believe in fairy tales before, and her own pain from realising that she’s an assignment and a duty to him, a girl that’s worth nothing more than her title and her status, is still too fresh in her mind.

She doesn’t hear what Jon says to the general, but after a few words from him the man leaves, leaving them alone on the balcony she hid on from all politicians and noblemen and military brass that crowd the Tyrell’s grand palazzo, and Jon takes a step back, clearly trying to give her some space. “Is everything okay, your grace?” he asks, always the knight in shining armour trying to save her from boring conversations, and she almost doesn’t recognise herself when she snaps at him.

“ _Stop_ calling me _that_!” She never loses her temper, hasn’t been allowed to lose it for as long as she can remember, and now it is him who flinches, who takes another step back. “I only want to be respectful when I address you in public,” he tries to tell her, his voice calm and his hands raised in an appeasing gesture, and she snorts. She no longer cares about the public or what they think, she finds, not when people spent the whole evening reminding her of the vows she was forced to make as a child bride while chastising her for having a therapist and panic attacks.

The banister of the balcony is made of rough stones and low and broad enough to sit on, and she doesn’t care if the fabric of her dress suffers when she hoists herself on it and kicks off the shoes that have been bordering her even before the gala started.

If this was a movie, she would pull out a cigarette and he would light it for her and the smoke would hang between them while they look down at the city spread on the hills below them, but this is the real world, where he doesn’t have a lighter and she can’t stand the smell.

She’s never been scared of heights, but he steps closer and puts his hand on her thigh as if to hold her, to keep her from falling, and when she leans back and looks at the cobblestoned street three stories below her, she wonders if he, too, thinks of Ashara Dayne every time he sets foot on a balcony.

His concern for her, written so plain on his face that it almost makes her heart bleed, seems to be real, and she doesn’t want to see him suffer, despite his lies and deception. Taking the hand that’s still holding onto her thigh into her own, his so big and rough and warm against her smaller one, feels natural, and he looks down to where they’ve intertwined their fingers on reflex, the blueish tint of the circles under his eyes smoothed out by the golden evening light, and her heart roars in its cage.

“Tell me what to do,” he pleads with her, actually _pleads_ , “tell me how I can fix this.”

She allows herself to caress his cheek, his jaw, with her free hand, cradles his face not thinking about how this might be the last time she gets to touch it.

“What did I do wrong?” he wants to know, and she laughs, but it sounds more like a sob and it feels like she’s choking on it. “You did everything right, too right. It made me forget that we’re not actually friends, that I’m really just part of your job, a princess to your knight, that it’s all just make-believe.”

She swears that she can hear his heart shatter at her words, and suddenly it’s him who’s cradling her face, mirroring her. “Oh my sweet girl,” he sighs, a sigh that seems to carry the weight of the entire world, and the way he looks at her makes her forget how to breathe.

He looks up at her as if she’s the most precious thing in the world, both as fragile as a flower blossom and as commanding as a raging storm, and she has to blink away the wetness in her eyes.

“Sansa.” He says her name, _finally_ , not _Miss_ _Stark_ or _Your_ _Grace_ or _Princess_ , but her name, and his voice is low and serious as he tells her the truth. “I never lied to you. I never deceived you. I’m just a man who happened to fall for his friend. I’m in love with you. I love you. I’m head over heels for you.”

“Jon?”

“Yes?”

“I think I love you, too.”


End file.
